


Who Waits Forever Anyway?

by 0ArmoredSoul0 (Cell0113)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale is a good supportive bean, Crowley has a bit of feels, Donna deserved better but at least she isnt dead, Mental Anguish, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Telepathy, this is sad and i am sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 10:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19810231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cell0113/pseuds/0ArmoredSoul0
Summary: The other side of Takene_ne's one shot, how Crowley and Aziraphale just barely manage to save Donna Noble from the metacrisis awakening in her brain.





	Who Waits Forever Anyway?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Takene_ne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takene_ne/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Touch my world with your fingertips](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19796761) by [Takene_ne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takene_ne/pseuds/Takene_ne). 



> I wrote this in a rush after reading the original one shot, it's unbetaed and rough and there's lots of run on sentences and weird phrasing but it's what came out and I need to get it gone before my fingers go off on another billion wpm tangent.

There's a woman watching him.

Admittedly, it's not something entirely uncommon. Between his flash bastard attire, the serpentine swagger and the ever enticing ginger locks, he's gotten used to the appraising and appreciative looks. Combine all that with the contrast he makes against the oh so soft and fluffy Aziraphale, they make a very odd sight. He would say queer, but that means something different nowadays and he's really not ready to put a label on this... Thing he's got going with his angel.

Back to the woman.

She caught sight of him early on, and he noticed something a bit off in her expression as she seemed to unconsciously follow his wavering way across the lawn. Oh, yeah, there was that initial appraising look, the one that almost always flickered away in embarrassment or turned to something more desiring.  
Her expression, however, went sort of... Pinched, her eyes narrowing like she was getting a headache. Or having a headache develop into a migraine, if his judgement of her expression as he passed by was at all accurate. And she kept watching him, tracking him across the park with that same pinched look the whole while.

He'd never admit it, but the scrutiny made him just a bit nervous.

Mortals noticing things had never really panned out well for them, no matter what side was involved. Just look at what happened with Jesus and the Romans.

Crowley tried not to pay too much attention to the woman, though he could still feel her eyes on him as he hopped over the bench to join Aziraphale, falling easily into their usual back and forth. It was a comforting constant, the well meaning chastisement and little smiles that made those soft features just that bit mischievous, and he let the familiarity calm his anxieties as they caught up.

How was Adam getting on, when was Ananthema and Newt finally going to get married, did the Bentley ever decide it wanted to try anything besides Queen for once or was it still turning bebop into rock and roll...

A little miracle tugged coffees into existence in their hands, his a rather sugary caramel thing he knew his angel was going to beg a sip of eventually while Aziraphale once again defied expectation with a dark brew only just sweetened with honey, and he felt more than saw those eyes on his back spark to attention. He chanced a glance back towards where the woman was sitting in a patch of sunlight, her deep auburn hair glittering orange and red against her pale freckled skin, and felt a thrill of something at her intense expression. She had definitely noticed the sudden appearance of their drinks, but rather than looking startled or bewildered, she had narrowed her eyes in a thoughtful, almost expectant look.

Like she'd seen something like that before, like she was trying to recall...

He glimpsed a flicker of gold, just the tiniest glimmer, blink and you miss it if you weren't watching for something odd, and that thrill up his spine went cold in recognition.

"Aziraphale..."

As much as he tried to keep his tone light, his angel knew him too well. Blue eyes blinked up at him, brows furrowing, and those soft pink lips pressed into a downward bow of concern.

"Yes, my dear?"  
"Do me a quick favor; That woman over there, the red head in the sun. Notice anything... Off about her?"

Blue eyes darted briefly in the direction of the mortal, brows furrowing further, and he felt the shift in dimensional space as his angel carefully spread his grace towards her, seeking to see what Crowley had glimpsed. Aziraphale's eyes widened, his hands tightening their grip around his coffee cup.

"I thought those people had driven themselves to extinction."  
"So did I, angel, so did I. I mean, the planet's not even there anymore, not even a debris field left to mark where it used to be..."  
"Do you think-?"  
"No, no, they had the tech for it but she's not got the signs of it, this is..."

He shook his head.

"I dunno. Something different."

The whole time they talk, the woman's eyes never leave them, but he notices out of the corner of his eye that her gaze has grown unfocused, looking more and more inwards as she starts to list slightly where she's sitting. Gold, again, flickers, brighter this time, sharper.

It reminds him of embers in a dying fire, only needing the slightest push to ignite into fresh flame.

Aziraphale reaches a hand towards his, and he takes it, their ethereal and infernal grace touching in the same motion, and he can now see what his angel sees. An intricate knotwork of telepathic binding has started to unravel from around the woman's mind, something hidden within her own psyche grasping for purchase, and he can see how it claws at her mind, at her self. It would burn her alive if it got loose, a matchstick in a bonfire, and someone, somewhere went to great lengths to prevent such.

She exhales a tiny gasp, pupils blown so wide they're visible from a distance, and he's on his feet before she even finishes collapsing to the ground.

His angel is right beside him, apologizing to the people he shoves past in his rush to get to the woman splayed out in the grass, gold swirling about her head and a trickle of blood dripping from her nose. Another mortal is hovering near her, useless and annoying, but they ask him if he's a doctor and he says yes before sharply telling them to back off. If this is really what he thinks it is, no mortal should be anywhere near by.  
That kind of telepathic backlash...  
He doesn't want to think about it.

Crowley can hear Aziraphale clearing people away, making as much space as he can, just in case, while he pretends to check over the collapsed woman as a physician would. It's not entirely a farce, he's learned quite a lot of things via osmosis over the millennia, and it's a good cover for him to feel out the knotwork that was containing this ticking time bomb. It's surprisingly well made, though it had obviously had to be created in a rush to preserve the woman's life and has weaknesses that no doubt led to this current crisis.  
Following the lines of thought and memory, he glimpses a blue box that is a machine and a number of faces, one of which he grimaces to find is uncannily similar to his own. It's no ones fault, not really, but he still feels a moment of guilt for unwittingly unraveling the safety net surrounding this woman's fragile life.

Once he understands what he's looking at, it's the work of a moment to mend the knotwork hiding the memories away, but he goes an extra step with a small miracle, adding the protection of a fallen angel to that of a lonely god to the life of the most important woman in the world. She will never have to fear for her mind ever again, the miracle will filter anything uncanny or alien from her perception and she will never come to harm for the lack of knowing.

She will live, and never know.

Crowley steps back as her eyes flutter open, dazed and not quite aware yet, and he hears a snap of fingers just as a hand slides into his own. They materialize in the Bentley, the mortals in the park continuing through their day none the wiser of anything that had happened in the last 20 minutes. He stares vacantly out the windscreen, the tiny scraps of memory he'd seen whirling in his mind's eyes, until the hand in his turns and gives him a gentle squeeze.

"Crowley?"  
"...there's one left. She ran with him, saved everything. And she can't ever remember what she did, or-"

He can't say it. But his angel knows him, and knows how this hurts. The hand in his squeezes a little more firmly.

"He had my face, sort of. It's why she was staring. She saw me and a part of her recognized-"

He waves his free hand in the general vicinity of his face, nose, mouth, ears, hair. For all he's had the same face for over six thousand years, it's still human enough to have mimics and similarities and repeats. After all, there's only so many ways the human form can be shifted and still be human. Things are bound to come full circle one way or another.

He just never expected that similarity to very nearly cause someone's death.

Leather creaks, and an arm wraps around his shoulder, pulling him over and down and he allows it. Lets himself turn into the soft warmth of his angel, hide his face in the time worn fabric that smells so pleasantly of old books and tea and sugar and something a little electric and just breathe the comforting familiarity of it.

Donna Noble has been saved, and she will always be saved.  
After all, once upon a time, she was the Most Important Woman.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [This thing that builds our dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20041066) by [Takene_ne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takene_ne/pseuds/Takene_ne)




End file.
